Listen to Clip of Unreleased David Lee Roth Song

Rob Zombie guitarist John 5 ended a recent interview by pulling out his phone to play a brief clip of an unreleased David Lee Roth song from an album titled California Sessions.

It was recorded around 2014 as a result of continued collaborations between Roth and 5, who previously worked together between 1998 and 2003. The guitarist revealed that the song was part of an album that he had to re-record almost as soon as it was done.

You can listen to the clip around 22.50 in the video below.

“Here’s what would happen – Dave would call me and he’d be like, ‘Come on over and let’s write some songs, get some Doritos,’” 5 told Masters of Shred in the interview.

“And I would always hang out with Dave for years and years and years. So I’d just go over and we’d just talk about everything, play music and write songs, you know, all the time. So there was this time where we’d write songs early in the morning, and then he would rent out the studio at night. … We’d write, write, write and then we’d go into the studio. And we did that for a long time. … We had a collection of music.”

With his recording duties completed, or so he thought, 5 recalled preparing to head out on tour, with Roth planning to have drummer Gregg Bissonette come in to add his own parts. At that point, the studio engineer said it couldn’t be done, because the songs had been laid down without a click track, making it almost impossible for a drummer to fit into the song.

“Dave’s face dropped,” 5 said. “I was out loading my car. … I’m leaning against my car and he said, ‘John, I’ve never asked you for anything but I’m asking you right now. You have to re-record this record.’ It was probably six at night and I [was leaving] at 10. This is my hero. … I go, ‘I’ll do it.’ So I unloaded all my stuff, which was agonizing, and I did it. I recorded the whole record again, to click.”

In 2015, 5 said the songs he worked on with Roth were "so good. And we've got Gregg Bissonette playing drums on it, and I played the bass, and they're really great songs.”

He added that Roth “loves the record” but that other projects prevented its release at that time. “So we'll see what happens in the future,” he concluded.